


Surprise, Bitch

by gotatheory



Category: American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Fix-it fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotatheory/pseuds/gotatheory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Surprise, bitches. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Surprise, Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> Let the fix-it fic commence. For the record, if the timing of anything seems off, just roll with it. I will probably fix it one day when the DVDs come out and I realize my mistake, but as far as this fic is currently concerned: Fiona dies on Thursday, the girls start the Seven Wonders Sunday morning, and finish Monday.
> 
> Ghosts work the same way that they did in Murder House, as far as I’m concerned, with it being possible to release ghosts from haunting where they died in Coven. This does not bring them back to life or change the way they operate.
> 
> Because I want to, this fic has two versions: Surprise, Bitch and Surprise, Bitch (The Long Live the Supreme Remix). Surprise, Bitch is the original version, written before “Seven Wonders.” It is decidedly less canon compliant than the second version. It has my personal preference for Supreme, my original thoughts for how the Seven Wonders was going to go, and my preferred ending. The Long Live the Supreme Remix is still not canon compliant, but it features the canon Supreme and takes into account how the Seven Wonders actually went down in the show. But it’s still self-indulgent fix-it fic with my preferred ending. #sorrynotsorry

She lays out the good cocaine and coffee, chants, and waits. He doesn’t take long before he appears, shadows shifting unnaturally on the walls before coalescing into his tall, thin form.

“Well, hello again, _chere_ ,” Papa Legba says with an amused smirk. “What a nice surprise.” He scoops some of the crack up into his nail and snorts it, making an appreciative noise.

“I have a couple of requests, Papa,” Fiona Goode replies, pulling out a cigarette and igniting the tip with a snap of her fingers. Her mother’s necklace hangs from her throat. “First, I want Marie Laveau’s soul back. You can keep LaLaurie, though. She makes a nice maid, but the bitch is really not worth the trouble.”

“Well, well. Ms. Queen of the Witches with no soul is trying to save her mortal enemy. Can’t say I was expecting that.” He chuckles. “But I cannot give you Marie’s soul. She cannot fulfill her end of our bargain. Her soul belongs to me.”

“Yes, I understand she can’t get you your innocent souls if she’s in pieces. But I’ve fixed that.” Fiona indicates the body lying on the bed behind her. Marie Laveau is still, but she has been neatly stitched back together, fixed by Fiona’s magic. “She has not broken your agreement. Unless you want to be called oathbreaker, you will give that body her soul back.”

He brings his fingers together, steepling them. A small smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Well-played, Witch Queen,” he says, and nods. “I shall restore Madame Laveau’s soul. Now what is your second request?”

“Immortality.”

“Ah. We have been down this road before. Unless you have somehow acquired a soul, you have nothing to pay me with. There is nothing you can offer me in return and I shall get nothing out of it.”

Fiona grins sweetly at him. “You need a soul in return, right?” She gestured with her hand, and Misty Day’s body floats from the floor beside the bed, the shawl Stevie Nicks gave her falling from her unmoving form. “I give you my replacement. And downstairs there’s more where she came from.”

“I see,” he says, and his smile widens. “The terms: you must fulfill a task of my choosing, no matter what the personal cost to yourself. Maybe it will be bring me one innocent soul. Maybe it will be murder a family. Cripple someone. Bring me your axe-carrying lover spirit’s head on a pike. Every thirty years or so, when your replacement comes into her powers, you must kill her and deliver her soul to me. Failure to complete any of my tasks will result not only in revoking your immortality, but death. A death that not even you can come back from, Witch Queen. Agreed?”

She takes a drag from her cigarette, exhales, and lets the haze curl around her. “Agreed.”

Papa Legba laughs and the shadows dance.

*

Her dear daughter could always be so blind, even before she lost her eyesight, that it was truly ironic that she had the Sight. God knows she needed all the help she could get, since she lacked any talent for reading people without supernatural assistance. Fiona knows why she took some garden shears and stabbed herself in the eyes. Nan drops dead and she wants to know who so she can protect the coven. It would be sweet, if it wasn’t so goddamn stupid.

She is sprawled out on her stomach on the bed in the ratty apartment her man insists on calling home, when she says, “You know, I think I have a better plan than eliminating those little idiots one by one.”

He turns away from the pieces of his saxophone he is cleaning, raising his eyebrows at her.

“Cordelia has blinded herself to get her Sight back. It’s not going to work, but not for the reasons she thinks. Girl has no sense of her own self-worth and that’s what’s messed up her powers. Fortunately, I can use her foolishness to my own advantage.”

“Which is what you like best about her.” He crosses over to the bed as she chuckles. He sits down next to her, one hand running up and down her back in a smooth, circular motion.

“Mm, keep that up and I won’t get to finish telling you my plan.” He stops, hand resting on the dip at the bottom of her spine. “You’re going to have to kill me.” This time, he pulls away entirely and stands up, incredulous.

“What?” he says, and she appreciates that he at least doesn’t throw his hands up or pace around the room. For all his flair with his axe (the one he kills with and the one he plays), he can be so understated at times.

She laughs, because that is exactly the reaction she wanted. She rolls over on her back and props up on her elbows to look up at him with a smile. “If you haven’t learned yet that death is cheap in this town, then you haven’t been paying enough attention, sir.”

*

Fiona wakes up in a shack in the swamp, three days after her death, completely healed from being cut into pieces by her lover. She stands up, trying to shake out the phantom pains of the axe splitting her body, and reminds herself that she is alive.

Stevie Nicks hands her a shawl to cover her naked form with, before pointing to the clothes boxes sitting in a corner of the shack. “I’m sure you have a perfectly legal explanation for this,” she says wryly as Fiona gets dressed, “as you always do whenever you need me to do something for you. You’re certainly not about to do anything foolish, like killing your coven.”

“Of course I do and of course not,” Fiona replies with a sly wink, shimming into her black dress. “But I thank you for your assistance anyway.”

Stevie does not look convinced. She knows that Fiona is not a particularly kind woman, and she can only imagine what sort of scheme requires being chopped into pieces and brought back to life. Nonetheless, the woman is her Supreme, and she is obligated to help so long as she doesn’t get too involved in any wrongdoing. “Please don’t kill that lovely Misty girl. Or if you do, can you make sure you don’t get any blood on that shawl? It’s a really nice one.”

She laughs, kisses Stevie on the cheek, and doesn’t make any promises before transmuting away.

*

Miss Robichaux’s Academy has, in fact, seen better days. Maybe if she had been a less selfish Supreme, Fiona would have caught on to the witch hunters and saved a few of the girls. On the other hand, that would be more people she had to kill now, so maybe it was for the best. As it is, on a Sunday morning while others are going to church, the women of the Academy are preparing for their own sort of church.

Fiona creeps into the house unseen, because none of them could break through a camouflage spell and good mind shield as that would take more refined talent than any of them possessed. Cordelia had really failed these girls in their teaching; letting any of them attempt the Seven Wonders was such a dangerous idea. She watches as each girl prepares for the task. Madison flawlessly demonstrates her telekinesis with some snappy comment, and Fiona rolls her eyes.

She keeps her eyes on the girl she is certain is her successor. Misty Day has never demonstrated telekinesis, and clearly she is afraid of it as she holds her palm toward a candlestick. It wavers, and then slides across the tabletop before flying into her hand. She looks proud of her accomplishment, even with Madison snarking in the background.

By the time they get to the second task, Madison and Zoe’s cold war about their zombie boy toy has become an inferno, and Cordelia has to break up their mind control shenanigans. So many sloppy witch bitches this generation, Fiona thinks. If she had enough time, she could let them kill one another, but that would take too long.

In the very next task, Zoe is out of the equation. Madison remarks that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, because “Attack of the Killer Va-jay-jay” had hardly ever done anything useful. Madison goes with Vitalum Vitalis, and Zoe makes a biting remark, “Of course your dead ass can’t bring anything back to life,” to which Madison promptly sets Zoe’s hair on fire, temporarily suspending the Seven Wonders while Cordelia and Myrtle tend to Zoe’s burnt scalp.

That leaves only Queenie and Misty and two more tests. Both pass Descensum with flying colors, and Fiona watches closely as Queenie prepares for Pyrokinesis. She cuts her hand and lets the blood drip onto the candle flame. She screams as the flames consume her, and the girls (except for Madison) move quickly to extinguish her. Again, there is a pause while Misty helps heal her, and Fiona smiles. Apparently the swamp witch is the new Supreme – unless they’re all wrong and it’s someone else, but she can’t think about that possibility right now.

Misty is smiling herself as they prepare the new candle. “I’ve already done this once before, right?” she says, referring to being burnt at the stake by her crazy ass church. She fearlessly watches the blood drop, tensing for a moment before the flames rippled across her skin. She laughs instead of screams.

Once the fire dies out, Myrtle Snow proclaims, “Behold, Misty Day, our new Supreme!”

Misty twirls and twirls, the shawl Stevie gave her flaring around her, and comes to a flawless stop. Her head gives a violent lurch to the right, and there is a resounding crack as her neck snaps. Her body falls to the floor just as Fiona’s camouflage spell wears off. Her hands drop to her sides and she smirks at her coven over the dead body of Misty Day.

“Surprise, bitches,” she says, chuckling slightly when Madison’s expression sours. “Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

“Mother?” Cordelia grips Myrtle’s arm tightly. “But how? The Axeman killed you! I saw it!”

“Yes, he did. But I did always say you were willfully blind, and you are.” She steps over Misty’s body, delicately lifting her skirt as if she had fainted like when she met Stevie. “Dear, sweet Delia. Did you really think that I would be so stupid as to get killed by a _human_? For all he is good with an axe, I am the goddamn Supreme. Trust me when I say I can handle one man with an axe.”

“It was all in your sick, twisted plan, wasn’t it, Fiona?” Myrtle says, dramatically bringing her hand to her heart. “You knew Cordelia would get a vision of your plot to kill us all, so you planned for her to see what you were thinking. You wanted her to go to the Axeman and tell him that you were leaving. You wanted him to kill you.”

“Oh, my dear Myrtle, not only did I want him to kill me, I told him to. I had to make sure that none of you would expect me to come back. Instead of killing you all in the hopes that I would eliminate the new Supreme, I could let you find the new Supreme for me, and take her out without ever being suspected.”

“But there is going to be a new Supreme, no matter what. You can’t live forever, Fiona!” Cordelia says.

Fiona laughs. “Don’t worry about that, my dear daughter. I’ve got about thirty years to figure that part out. But I’m afraid our time is at an end,” she says, clasping her hands together in front of her. “Even with Misty dead, I’m afraid that you still have to die. I can’t risk one of you witches resurrecting her, can I?”

She massacres her coven with as much effort as it took to slide into her Chanel slingbacks.

*

Her next task is bringing her man back. Cordelia once again proved that she knew nothing about magic. The Axeman is a ghost, and it’s not possible to kill something that is already dead. The only way to get rid of a ghost is a cleansing ritual. Cordelia should have known that, and Fiona supposes she was taking a risk by believing that either she didn’t know or wouldn’t bother performing the ritual. Either way, Fiona decided she wouldn’t have lost much other than some extraordinary sex and a handy axe-wielding ghost assassin.

She lights some candles, digs out the Ouija board, and places a shot glass upside down in the center of the board. She watches as it moves of its own volition, spelling out, “Hello, baby.”

She smiles, feeling the barely-there brush of fingertips over her cheek. She reaches for the ancient tome Zoe Benson read from and lazily flicks through the book using telekinesis, enjoying the surge of power she could feel inside of her. It hadn’t been long since she killed Misty Day, and already she felt stronger. Once she lands on the spell, she reads it out loud, and waits.

Her man steps into the room, and grins at her like the predator he is. It sends shivers down her spine, and she remembers three days ago. There is the sense memory of the axe burying into her back and the stunning pain of it, and she tries to put it out of her mind. Knowing that it was all planned and that she would be coming back didn’t make it hurt any less, and her body seemed determined to not let her forget it. Still, she lets him wrap his arms around her, trying to replace the memories with new ones.

“Death by a thousand cuts is horrible enough the first time, but it hurt even worse this time,” he says into her hair, and she can hear the petulance in his tone.

“Considering what I let you do to me with that axe, I don’t want to hear any of your sass,” she replies, pressing a kiss to his mouth before stepping out of the circle of his arms. “Now, I still have some business to attend to.”

He watches her walk away. “I love you, baby.”

She turns and smiles at him, taking note of his guarded manner. Her entire existence has been made from reading and then manipulating people, and she can tell what he’s thinking. For Cordelia’s sake and to make it as flawless as possible, they did actually fight. He did actually murder her. And he clearly remembers the things she said.

“Well,” she says, dragging the word out as she steps back toward him. She reaches for his hand, trails her fingers up his arm. “I should warn you, I have no soul. But I love you as much as this soulless heart of mine allows.” She twists her hand around the back of his neck and pulls his mouth to hers.

*

Marie Laveau stares at Fiona after she has recounted her exploits in the days since LaLaurie got her revenge. It wasn’t the complete story, of course. Fiona (grudgingly) considered Marie the only equal she had, but she didn’t quite want to let her in on the extent of her treachery. Killing Nan was one thing; the girl was clearly becoming a problem. Killing the entire coven was something else.

“And now what happens?” Marie Laveau says, cocking her head at her. “While I appreciate the rescue, I hope you know I’m not going to be indebted to you.”

“Oh, no, of course not, Marie.” She waves a dismissive hand at the thought. “Consider it repentance for digging LaLaurie up in the first place. No, I only wanted to restore you to your place as Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.”

“And you wanted immortality.” Marie is not stupid. She feels positive that there is something left out of Fiona’s Good Samaritan story.

Fiona laughs. “Ah, yes, immortality. That might have been a part of the plan, too. And I’ve got it now.” She giggles again, though that might be the gin and tonic, or the cocaine. “But don’t you worry how I got it. It’s not important.”

Marie looks uncertain about that, but she is rather enjoying this truce between the two of them. She trusts Fiona about as far as she can throw her, but she thinks she’d rather keep her as a tentative ally instead of getting on her bad side. Especially now that they’re both immortal.

“By the way,” Fiona says as she casually lights another cigarette, still preferring to show off by using only her mind to do so. She hasn’t been this ostentatious since she had slit Anna Leigh’s throat, but she is drunk off of alcohol and drugs and her own revitalized power. She feels so alive now. “I got you that private jet from the witch hunters. It’s at the airport, ready to take you anywhere that you’d like to go.”

“Even more presents from Fiona Goode? Damn, it must be my lucky day after all,” Marie says, narrowing her eyes. “And you don’t expect a thing in return?”

“Maybe the occasional girl’s trip to Paris or Milan for fashion week, if you want to go.” She shrugs. “Marie, I am immortal now. I have a new lease on life. There’s ever so much that I still want to do and accomplish.”

“What is next for the oh-so-great Supreme?”

She senses the mocking in Marie’s tone, but she ignores it. She rather likes having her for an ally too, and not just because of the private jet. “My man wants to retire to a farm.” Her nose wrinkles at the mere thought of it. “It sounded like a nice idea when I was dying. But truthfully, I am nobody’s milk maid, and I did not just bargain for immortality to live it out on some front porch watching the wheat grow.”

“So instead?”

“I’m going to convince him we should travel a bit, and then we can retire.” She says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Marie wonders if it will actually be that easy. Fiona must read her uncertainty in her face, because she laughs again, a rather girlish giggle that doesn’t suit her ruthlessness. “Don’t worry about me, Marie. I’m the goddamn Supreme.”

**FIN.**


	2. Surprise, Bitch (The Long Live the Supreme Remix)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Behold. The one, true Supreme.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My second fix-it fic for the season finale of Coven. I’m fairly certain my timing is off, but the show barely cared about consistency, so I’m not going to worry too much about it. Maybe I’ll fix it when the DVDs come out and I can figure out the timeline a little better.
> 
> FYI: Ghosts work the same way as in Murder House in this fic, with the addition that witches can release ghosts from haunting where they died. This does not bring them back to life or change the way they operate.
> 
> This is a remix of my Surprise, Bitch. The first fic was written immediately after “Go to Hell” and before “Seven Wonders.” The remix was written after “Seven Wonders” aired, and therefore is a little more canon compliant. It has the canon Supreme, takes into account how things went down in the finale, and then acts as self-indulgent fix-it fic for the rest.

Paris is lovely this time of year, but Fiona barely enjoys the atmosphere. Besides accomplishing some shopping to replace her ruined Jimmy Choos (it’s been two days and she still hasn’t gotten over that), she has spent her time in front of the vanity mirror in her lavish hotel suite. Not just because she is a vain bitch, but because she is trying to get a glimpse of what is happening back at the house.

She can feel her magic waning. Her body is getting weaker; her eyes are sinking and her skin turning waxy. The magic leaving her is the worst. She can feel it, the inexorable drain like the warmth of a fire slowly going out. Everything is turning colder, getting distant. Where before she could hear and feel everything in high definition, now she feels like someone is holding her head under water.

The one comfort is that whoever the new Supreme is she still hasn’t realized she is the next Supreme. Fiona knows that once her successor ascends, then her days will be running out.

Her cell phone rings, interrupting her concentration, and the hazy vision she was coaxing to the surface of the mirror is lost. She answers without looking at the screen – she knows it’s Stevie Nicks by the instrumental version of “Gold Dust Woman” playing – and Stevie skips the pleasantries by asking, “Why does Cordelia think you’re dead?”

Fiona chuckles and holds back a remark about Cordelia’s stupidity. Instead, she says, “What makes you think she does?”

“She called today and asked me to come by the house tomorrow. She wants me to bless it in the morning, before those girls perform the Seven Wonders. She said you were dead and they had to find the new Supreme.”

She’s glad Stevie cannot see her grin. “Don’t worry about Delia. Go bless the house and don’t tell her you’ve talked to me. I’m sure she has her reasons for thinking I’m dead, besides her own wishful thinking,” she says reassuringly, before hanging up with her old friend. Her grin widens as she calls down to the front desk and makes plans for her departure.

By the time she gets back to New Orleans, she thinks there will be a new Supreme. But she won’t be for long.

*

New Orleans is filled with old magic, the kind that calls to witches, a siren song luring them not to their deaths but to their new home. Once upon a time, setting foot in the state was enough for Fiona to feel the pull in her blood toward Miss Robichaux’s Academy. She could taste it in the air, inhale it into her lungs like smoke, better than any cigarette she’s ever smoked.

Now, with her magic and body decaying, she could just barely feel a tingle in her veins. Instead, her head hurts, and she shies away from the too bright lights of the airport. From there it builds into a constant, barely there migraine. Annoying, but not necessarily painful. When she touches her hair, clumps come away in her hand. Fear lances through her like a hot knife, and she gets the impulse to drive straight to the Robichaux Academy to kill the witch bitch who is stealing her life force.

But Fiona has not gotten anywhere by being foolish, and she’s not about to start now. Rushing headlong into the house would either end in her own demise or, at the very least, ruin her element of surprise. She doesn’t know how many of the girls survived the Seven Wonders, who the new Supreme actually is, or how powerful any of them are. She cannot rush this, just because she’s dying faster than last time. She doesn’t go anywhere near the house; she goes to her favorite hotel and eats out at her favorite restaurant and ignores the ache in her chest.

A day later, she drives by the house to try and get a peek at her replacement. If she is going to fight the coven and kill the new Supreme, she has to get an idea what she’s dealing with. She sees Cordelia through a window, healed and healthy, the phantom pull of her own magic shimmering around her, and dread notches alongside the cancer in her bones. Her worthless daughter is the Supreme.

Maybe she should start praying. Only a higher power would have such a terrible sense of humor.

Nearly a month passes after her discovery, and she barely has enough strength to get out of bed. As she knew would happen, she has gotten weaker, almost powerless as Cordelia rose to Supremacy. She should have killed her that day, could have done it with a wave of her hand before Cordelia even knew what happened. If it had been anyone else, she would have.

Fiona Goode’s greatest secret has always been that she has a heart, even if it’s three sizes too small.

Seeing her daughter, ugly acid scars healed, eyesight restored, and standing straight with renewed confidence shook her more than she would have guessed. It’s one thing to say you’ll maim your daughter, it’s another thing entirely when you have to kill her, even for Fiona.

In the hotel room she has been living in since her return to New Orleans, she realizes that she is going to die. Alone. Unloved. No one else will know or miss her or even care that she’s dead. Everyone already thinks she is. For a brief moment, she thinks of her lover, and regret tastes bitter in her mouth. Maybe dying on a farm wouldn’t have been so bad after all, if it meant being with someone. Fear settles deep into her black heart.

When she sees the shadows on the wall shifting in impossible ways, she thinks she is hallucinating. Clearly, the cancer has metastasized to her brain, and death is bound to be imminent. But then the shadows come together and a deep, dark laughter fills the room, echoing off the walls.

“How the mighty have fallen,” Papa Legba says as he peers down at her shrunken form. “Perhaps you should not have gotten rid of your axe-carrying lover so quickly.”

She wonders if he could hear what she was thinking. She tries not to give herself away, instead rolling her eyes. She might not look like the feisty Fiona Goode she used to be, but she was still going to act like it. “I don’t need him to kill Cordelia,” she snaps, though her voice is weak and raspy, and it hurts to talk. “He’d never be able to murder any witch worth her salt.”

“And yet, you seem unable to kill her yourself. Maybe you need more help than you realize.”

“Is that an offer?”

He laughs again. “Sorry, _chere_ , but you have nothing to give me in return, remember? No soul, no deals.”

“I’ll bring you two souls a year. Ten. A hundred. One for every day. All I need is immortality in return.” She bites her tongue to keep _please_ from tripping off her lips. She is desperate, but she begs for no one.

“But what would I get if you fail your task?”

She thinks fast, trying to think what he can have instead of her soul. She remembers the Seven Wonders, remembers _Descensum._ “I might not have a soul, but I can descend into hell. So there’s something inside of me that travels. You can have that part of me.”

Papa Legba is silent for a moment, mulling this over. Then he smiles. “If you kill the new Supreme tonight, I shall visit you again, and we can continue this conversation.”

Life really is full of little ironies.

*

After dressing in her newest black dress and slipping into a rather daring pair of Manolo Blahniks, she transmutates from her hotel room to her old bedroom at the house. Fortunately no one is in there, so as to not ruin her surprise, but also to see her stumble and fight the wave of nausea that overcomes her. She tries to not think about how easily she used to transmutate between continents, and instead settles into a chair to wait for Cordelia to find her.

It doesn’t take her long. Fiona smiles at her through the hazy darkness, cigarette smoke lusciously drifting around her.

“I saw you die,” Cordelia says, and her voice wavers. The confidence Fiona had seen is already faltering with her mother back in her life.

“Look again, now that you have real vision,” she replies, taking a drag on her cigarette. When Cordelia snaps out of it, Fiona continues, “Did you really think I could be killed by one man with an axe? He was a _human_. He didn’t even have blessed bullets, for God’s sake! I am a goddess, and it takes much more than one human to kill me, you idiot. You couldn’t even tell goat’s blood from your own mother’s!” She shakes her head, angry at herself for producing such a useless creature.

Cordelia is unfazed by her mother’s insult. She doesn’t even wince, and Fiona might have been proud of her if she wasn’t too busy being disgusted instead. She takes a seat across from her, laughing quietly as she says, “So this was your plan all along.”

Fiona shrugs. “I was getting weaker. It seemed easier to let you figure out who the Supreme was instead of me trying to kill all of you. Then I could kill whoever turned out to be the one.”

“But it’s not that easy when it’s your own daughter?”

“Not really.” Her lips twist in a cruel mockery of a smile. “In some ways, it should be easier. I always knew you were going to replace me. Not necessarily as Supreme, I never thought you were powerful enough for that. But the moment I gave birth to you and looked at your tiny face, I knew you would replace me because that’s what children do. I was going to grow old and die, and there you would be, waiting to take my place. Most women talk about their biological clock, but you were the only clock I ever needed to remind me about my own mortality.”

Cordelia is silent for a long moment. “Are you going to kill me, Mother?” Her head is cocked to one side, and she looks at Fiona as if she is something to be carefully studied.

“I wanted to.” She reveals the knife in her hand and sets it on the small table between them. “But I hardly could. I’ve waited too long. All my powers have left me for you. Do you feel it? I can – you’re vibrating with my power.” Her laugh is dry and brittle. “I think I’m here for a different reason. It’s time for you to accept your destiny, Delia. You can’t reach your full potential as Supreme until I’m dead. So kill me.”

Cordelia picks up the knife and looks at it for a long moment. “I might be your daughter, but I’m not you,” she murmurs as she puts the knife to the side. “I’m not going to kill you just to put you out of your misery. Look at you. You could barely have more than a day left. I think you’re just scared. I think dying terrifies you and you hoped that I would end it for you, so you wouldn’t have to stay locked in this fear. Dying is such a human experience, isn’t it, Fiona? And you’ve always considered yourself a divine being.”

Fiona’s eyes track Cordelia’s hand and linger on the knife. At her daughter’s words, tears prick at her eyes, and she clumsily rises to her feet. Somehow, she manages to stand in her pumps despite being inches away from being six feet under. Cordelia stands with her, reaching out to help hold her up.

“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” Cordelia whispers, wrapping her arms around her. She cradles Fiona, as if their positions are reversed. She holds her the way Fiona never did for her as a little girl. Tears well in her eyes and her voice cracks. “Just let go. It’s okay to let go. It’s all going to be okay.”

Fiona rasps as she breathes. “Yes.” Her hand blindly reaches for the table. “I think it’s going to be.” She remembers the look of surprise on Anna Leigh’s face. The look on Madison’s. She drives the knife up and in between Cordelia’s ribs, and wonders whether being stabbed or a slashed throat hurts worse. With her arms around her, Fiona can feel the gasp that ripples through her daughter, and she pulls back to look at her face as she pulls out the knife. When she digs it in again and twists, tears leak from Cordelia’s eyes.

“Shh,” she hisses as Cordelia’s mouth moves soundlessly. “It’ll all be over soon.”

Cordelia’s fingers dig into her mother’s shoulders, before her grip loosens, and her knees give out. Fiona lowers her body to the ground as Cordelia’s face slackens.

The air crackles as the magic leaves Cordelia’s body. Fiona can feel it, hanging in the air, uncertain over what has occurred between the old Supreme and the new one.

Standing over her daughter’s dead body, Fiona feels the power flowing back into her. She reaches down and pulls her mother’s necklace from around Cordelia’s neck. “It looked horrible on you, anyway,” she comments as she pushes her hair out of her face. None of it comes away in her hands, and the power surges inside of her.

*

Zoe and Queenie eventually come looking for Cordelia. They find her, eyes open and unseeing, blood pooled around her, and a knife sticking out of her side. Fiona smirks at their surprised, horrified faces.

“You’re dead,” Zoe says, because she has not met a time when she should not state the obvious.

Fiona laughs and offers a one-shoulder shrug. “The Supreme is dead. Long live the Supreme.”

“Do you really think we’re going to let you be Supreme again?” Queenie scowls at her. “After you nearly destroyed this coven the last time?”

“You don’t have a choice. I am your Supreme, whether you like it or not.” Fiona stands up effortlessly, smoothing out her black skirt. “Now, I understand that Cordelia has taken us public and is leading the search to find new witches. I’m quite proud of that work and I think you should continue that. But this bedroom is mine, and if any one of you witch bitches so much as think about staying in here, I will murder you with even less effort than it took to kill my own daughter.”

“You can’t do this!” Zoe says, fists clenching defiantly at her side. “We’re the Council now. We can burn you at the stake for murdering Cordelia.”

Fiona tilts her head at them. “You know, I don’t think I made myself clear the first time. So let me try this again.” She points two fingers at them, her telekinesis curling around their throats and cutting off their air supply with ease. “I am the Supreme. I will let you run this academy as my dear Delia wanted. If you need more space, then I will acquire more houses. But this room is mine. Now get out, before I kill you.”

She drops her hand and Zoe and Queenie inhale deeply, gasping for air. They both look like they’re considering what to do, weighing their options. She almost points out that not only did she easily murder her daughter, but she did it with a knife when she was practically powerless, and Cordelia was the most powerful witch in any room. They don’t stand a chance. Either they hear what she’s thinking or they’re smarter than she gives them credit for, because they both stand down.

The status quo has been restored.

*

That night, she lays out the good cocaine, and makes a batch of coffee. Cordelia’s body is still on the floor where she left it, covered with a sheet. Fiona sits and watches the shadows dancing along the wall. They coalesce into the tall, thin form of Papa Legba, who promptly scoops up a line and snorts it.

“I killed the new Supreme, Papa,” she says with a wide grin. “And I’ve got my first soul for you.” She indicates Cordelia’s body.

He laughs. “Well, well. I did not think you would actually do it. Murder your own daughter.”

“You shouldn’t underestimate me. I have no soul, remember?” she says without an ounce of shame. “I’d do it again and again if it’d get me immortality.”

“I can see that.” Papa Legba regards her carefully for a moment. “Shall we discuss terms?”

Fiona pulls out a cigarette and ignites the tip with a snap of her fingers. She is being ostentatious, flashing her power like she was that child who replaced Anna Leigh all over again. In some ways, she supposes she is. “Immortality. No aging. No sickness. No dying. Same as Marie Laveau.”

Papa Legba smiles and nods. “My terms: you must fulfill a task of my choosing, no matter what the personal cost to yourself. Maybe it will be bring me one innocent soul. Maybe it will be murder a family. Cripple someone. Bring me your lover’s head on a pike. Burn this house to the ground with everyone else inside of it. Whichever, you must do it in the time I specify. Every thirty years or so, when your replacement comes into her powers, you must kill her and deliver her soul to me. Failure to complete any of my tasks will result not only in revoking your immortality, but instant death, and then I will drag you to my realm. Not even you will be able to come back from that, Witch Queen. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” She takes a drag from her cigarette, letting the smoke curl around her. They seal their deal with a kiss. As the shadows start moving once more, she says, “One last thing before you go.” He looks at her expectantly. “Marie Laveau seems to have disappeared. Any idea where she is?”

“She belongs to me now,” he replies with a sinister smile.

“I thought that might be the case.” She nods, flicking the ashes off her cigarette. “I want her back.” Her tone is not the flippant, conversational one she had when she was “negotiating” with the witch hunters. She is steel, daring the deity she bargained with to challenge her authority.

“Well, well. Ms. Queen of the Witches with no soul is trying to save her mortal enemy. Can’t say I was expecting that.” He chuckles. “But she cannot fulfill her end of our bargain. She forfeits her soul.”

“Yes, Queenie explained her predicament to me. That’s rather convenient for you, isn’t it?” Fiona allows a small smile to turn up the corners of her mouth. “I can put her back together again, but there’s no point if you don’t return her soul to her body.”

“Why would I agree to this?”

“Because she hasn’t broken your deal yet. She gave you the one soul she owed you. If you don’t return her soul and give her a chance, then I will name you oathbreaker.” The magic shakes the air as she speaks. “All your deals will be invalidated then.”

He brings his fingers together, steepling them. A small smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Well-played, Witch Queen,” he says. “If you can find all the pieces of Marie Laveau, then I will return her soul to her body. You may not use the parts of anyone or anything else. You have three days.”

When he’s gone, Fiona gets out the cup and pebbles, throwing them on the table. Holding her hands above them, she divines where Marie is, one piece at a time.

*

By the end of three days, she has carefully reconstructed Marie in her bedroom. As the sun sinks below the horizon and the moon rises high, the Voodoo Queen opens her eyes. She blinks at Fiona and then laughs.

“Is this a new hell Papa done dreamed up for me?” she says, sitting up.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re back in the land of the living. You’re welcome,” Fiona replies dryly. At Marie’s furrowed brows, she explains the deal she made with Papa Legba to restore her soul.

“And now what happens?” Marie cocks her head, still suspicious of Fiona. “While I appreciate the rescue, I hope you know I’m not going to be indebted to you.”

“No, of course not.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Consider it repentance for digging LaLaurie up in the first place. No, I only wanted to restore you to your place as Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.”

Marie hums, clearly not buying Fiona’s Good Samaritan act. “What other deals did you make with Papa?”

“Oh, you know,” she says with a casual shrug. “The usual deals one makes with a crossroads deity.”

“You and Papa managed to come to terms about your immortality, then.”

Fiona smiles secretively, reaching for another cigarette. She still prefers to light it with her mind instead of a lighter, though Marie Laveau is hardly going to be impressed. It’s not about impressing anyone. She is enjoying her power, and she wants everyone to see it and to know that she is the once and future Supreme.

“You know it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Mama. I’ve been here for over two hundred years.” Her dark eyes focus on a point beyond Fiona’s head, growing distant. “Seen a lot of shit. It gets old after a while. And when you’ve made a deal with Papa Legba, there is no way to get a reprieve.”

“Trust me when I say I am thrilled at the thought of living for two hundred years, and I hope to live for two hundred more,” Fiona says with a laugh. “Oh, by the way! I got you that private jet from the witch hunters. It’s at the airport, ready to take you anywhere that you’d like to go.”

“And Fiona Goode just keeps on giving gifts! Damn, it must be my lucky day after all.” Marie’s smile is tight as she narrows her eyes. “And you don’t expect a thing in return?”

“Just the occasional girl’s trip to Paris or Milan for fashion week, if you want to go with.” Fiona shrugs. “Well, there was one more thing. In the time that you have been gone, the coven has undergone a revitalization. We have more young members than we’ve had for a very long while. I would appreciate it if you would maybe stick around, help teach them? I’m afraid that our selection is rather pale at the moment, but maybe you and Queenie could help reach out to other Voodoo witches or other descendants of Tituba.”

Marie’s eyebrows creep up into her hairline. “Are you proposing an integrated coven?” she says in obvious disbelief. “Not even Anna Leigh dared to cross those lines in her treaty.”

“It’s fitting, though, isn’t it? The two immortals making change and creating history. Who better than us to know that progress and change are necessary for survival?”

“Girl, you have been immortal for less than a damn week. I’m going to need you to stop acting like you’ve been alive since Jesus walked the earth.”

Fiona laughs. “All right, fine, have it your way. Back to the point! What do you say, Marie? Are you going to stick around?”

Marie can think of many reasons why this is a bad idea. She trusts Fiona Goode about as far as she could throw her. But she has found they work well together and having an immortal Supreme as an ally couldn’t be that bad. She holds out her hand. “You got a deal, white witch.”

Fiona’s grin splits her face as she shakes Marie Laveau’s hand. “Come on, this calls for alcohol to celebrate.”

*

Fiona slips back into her life as all-powerful Supreme with as much ease as she slips into her Manolo Blahniks. Queenie and Zoe handle most of the new coven members, though Marie Laveau has a zest for teaching. It was a good choice to offer her the position, and Fiona must admit the two of them make a good pair. Not that Fiona helps much when it comes to teaching (except to make sure Zoe and Queenie do not let the girls get complacent or weak, the way Cordelia did), but she and Marie both like the finer things in life, and many of their nights are spent drinking and cackling about the latest hilarious screw up some new member did.

She leaves for days occasionally, sometimes with Marie and sometimes not. Usually it’s nothing special; Lagerfeld debuts a new design in France she simply must have or it’s Golden Globe night in California and everyone knows the Golden Globes has the best after-party. Mostly it’s because she gets claustrophobic in the house. She grew up within these walls and it never felt like home, not once. Back then she thought it was the oppressive watch of her superiors trying to keep her in line, but even when she took over the Supremacy and there was no one superior to her, she still felt like a fish out of water.

She’s not sentimental or foolish enough to blame her irresponsible ways on trying to find a home, but she remembers how much she did not want to die in this house. She wanted to die somewhere she loved, where she felt like she belonged. She thinks about her man, and how happy she was in that ratty apartment when she was still dying. She shudders at the thought of descending into the domestic life he dreamed up, but a part of her misses the way she felt with him.

Lying in her own bed, she flips through television channels before landing on a late night talk show, featuring Stevie Nicks as the musical guest. She watches her perform a single off her latest album, when she senses a presence entering her room. A quick glance at the shadows behaving normally rules out Papa Legba. Sitting up, she looks around, and then there he is, axe in hand, as if her thoughts had conjured him.

“Well. Hello there, handsome,” she says, not quite smiling as she stands. She keeps her bed between them, though she knows just how deadly he is with that axe. She hopes her reflexes are honed enough for this, in case it goes badly for her.

“Hello.” His voice is oddly flat as he looks at her, the usual twinkle missing from his eye. In fact, he is staring at her the same way he did the last time she saw him, after Cordelia had visited.

She considers playing coy and acting like this was all a part of her plan, but she doubts he’d fall for the same act twice. She used him like a sacrificial lamb so she could find the new Supreme. She’d do it again, without a thought, the same way she’d murder Cordelia over and over if it kept her in power. Instead of adopting an act, she chuckles darkly, and says, “I guess Delia was more incompetent than I thought.”

“I’m a ghost. And though it still hurts like hell, you can’t kill a ghost,” he says, full of bitterness and anger, and she notices that his grip tightens on the axe. “Even released from this prison, I was never really alive.”

“That’s convenient,” she remarks flippantly, and thinks that would have been very useful knowledge to have before she sent him to die by Cordelia. She should have read up on ghosts more before she set her plan into action.

He laughs, dry and hollow, and shakes his head at her. The axe swings languidly at his side. “Yeah, I guess so,” he says, still chuckling. “That’s all I ever was to you, isn’t it? A convenience? Something to use for your pleasure and to kill whoever you couldn’t kill yourself and to make sure everything went according to your master plan. I remember that vision you put inside me. I remember the things you said in it! That’s how you really feel, isn’t it?”

“And what if it is? If you’re expecting an apology, you’ve come to the wrong witch.” Fiona’s eyes narrow at him. “I will admit that there was some truth to that vision. But you can’t possibly be upset at me for it. I told you the night we met that I am a miserable, mean bitch, and I wasn’t fishing for compliments about my dazzling personality when I said it. I told you I didn’t believe in love. You were sitting right here when I found out that I don’t have a soul. I killed my own flesh and blood and the only second thoughts I had about it was that her blood might stain my dress.”

“I thought you loved me.” His expression is open, allowing her to see how broken he feels just by looking at his face. “I thought things would be different with us. That you were going to change for me…”

“Everyone seems to think I have a bigger capacity for change than I actually do.” Her voice is a little crueler than she necessarily intends. His weakness for her is reminding her of Cordelia. It reminds her of how she felt when she was dying, when she needed to rely on someone else to keep her going. She becomes braver, meaner, and makes her way around the bed. “Can you really see me on a farm? Do I look like a milk maid?” She spreads her arms wide to indicate her outfit. “Everything that I’m wearing right now costs more money than you have ever seen.”

She steps towards him and he automatically steps back, regarding her warily. She laughs as his fingers flex around the axe.

“My dear boy,” she says, shaking her head. “You might be talented with that axe, but do not forget that I have more power than you can dream of.” She raises her hand and the axe slips from his grip to land in her outstretched palm, before she tosses it on the bed behind her. “Just because I let you kill me in a vision doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough for it to happen in real life.”

Without his weapon, all the menace seems to have left him. His shoulders hunch and he bows his head to her, defeated. “Just get it over with quickly, please?” he whispers. “I know you would take pleasure in drawing it out, but I’d appreciate it if you could do this one little thing for me…”

Fiona tilts her head, regarding him. His gaze stays locked on the floor, even as she approaches him. She considers what he’s asking, mulling over how easy it would be to incapacitate him and then cleanse his spirit from the house, solving all of her problems. She reaches out and before she is sure of what she is going to do, her hand is curling around the back of his neck, pulling him into a kiss.

He tenses, expecting this to be the calm before the storm. As she pulls away, he waits for the final blow.

“I have a proposal for you,” she says, her voice low due to how close she is standing to him. She hasn’t even completely pulled away; her lips brush against his as she speaks. “We go back to how we were. We were happy, weren’t we? I must admit that I miss our time in that little apartment…”

When he raises his head, he looks a bit like a puppy that can’t quite figure out what its master wants. Fiona smiles and continues, “We can put all this betrayal and farm talk behind us. Now that I’m immortal and you’re not alive, who needs retirement?” She kisses him again, and if she happens to weave just a little magic into it, she can hardly be blamed for it.

This time he is the one that pulls away, perhaps feeling the magic reaching into him now that he knows what it tastes like. “I don’t know that I can do that,” he says, his brows furrowed with sadness. “I loved you and all you wanted to do is use me… How long until you get tired of me again?”

“Not long if you keep this up,” she mutters, retreating from him. She crosses her arms under her breasts and scowls. “All right, so that’s option number one. Option two is I cleanse your spirit from this house and go back to living my life as if you were never in it. I’ll miss the sex, but I’ve done okay so far, and if I get desperate enough I’ll find another lover.”

“Then kill me and be done with it!” He stalks towards her, grabbing her upper arms, and he realizes how close he is to her bed. His eyes flit to the axe and a sort of hope blossoms in his chest.

Fiona notices and she does not take kindly to his idea that he can manhandle her or overpower her. She jerks her head and he goes flying backwards, coming to a stop when his back connects hard into the wall. She uses her power to hold him there. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have by now!” she snaps at him. She means to sound angry, but something else must have slipped into her tone as his rage quells.

“You’re lonely.” His eyes widen in realization and a wry smile crosses his lips as he looks at her like he’s seeing her for the first time. “Don’t try to deny it. I’ve known you for a long, long time. I can tell now. You look like the woman I first brought into that apartment.”

Her hands clench into fists at her sides, the air around her crackling with magic as she considers tearing him apart limb by limb. “You have made me weak!” she shouts, trembling as anger burns hot inside of her. “I have never needed anyone before this! I should kill you now and get out the sage to rid myself of you once and for all! And I could do it as easily as I slid that knife into Cordelia’s stomach.”

He laughs, actually laughs at her, and red colors Fiona’s vision. She doesn’t know when she crossed the room, but she’s standing in front of him, and her palm connects with his cheek. The slap echoes in the room, followed by his continuing chuckles. When she tries to slap him again, he catches her hand, and hisses, “Stop it.”

Fiona does, not because he said so, but because his audacity snaps her out of her uncontrollable rage. She glares at him, breathing heavily as she feels the anger becoming less like a hurricane and more like a fire burning bright inside of her. When she kisses him this time, it is too hard and full of teeth.

She drags him away from the wall and uses her telekinesis to shove the axe as far away from the bed as she could, then she pushes him down onto the comforter.

*

This time, Fiona uses an actual lighter to light her cigarette, because she is still seeing stars, and she doesn’t want to set fire to her pillow by mistake. She can still feel the tremor of orgasm in her limbs and magic settling like dust over the room. Whenever she deigns to get up, she is going to have to replace all the light bulbs. She looks over at the man beside her, barely able to make out his outline in the dark, and can’t resist laughing.

He rises up on his elbow to look at her, relaxation giving way to tension. He is learning that he can never be too careful around her. “What’s so funny?” he asks warily.

She smiles secretively at him, taking a drag from her cigarette and blowing smoke rings. She can feel his eyes linger on the shape of her mouth. It’s too easy, she thinks, but she says, “All that time spent arguing and we end up like this anyway.”

Before he can reply, someone knocks on Fiona’s door. No one ever knocks on Fiona’s door except for one person, so she is not surprised when she hears Marie Laveau’s voice on the other side. “You done in there, Mama?” she calls through the door.

“Yes, Marie,” Fiona says, chuckling.

The Voodoo Queen cracks the door and peeks in at Fiona through the darkness. “We gon’ have to have a talk about this. You scared the children, and I think you done fried the circuit breaker. We ain’t got any light downstairs,” she says, but even in the dark her eyes twinkle with mirth.

When Fiona laughs this time, he joins her, and everything feels at ease.

*

The time comes when Fiona is in her room, slipping into an off the shoulder dress she thinks her man will rather enjoy removing. She checks her makeup a final time in her vanity mirror and stands, immediately bracing herself against the table as her head swims. The vertigo goes as quickly as it comes, but Fiona still feels the frisson of fear dance down her spine. She can’t be sick. It’s a part of the deal. She hasn’t been feeling the best lately, though, and she noticed yesterday that her magic felt different. The realization blossoms slowly, taking its sweet time to come to the surface.

A new Supreme is rising.

Papa Legba confirms her suspicions when he visits her the next night. His instruction is simple: “Deliver her to me before she completes the Seven Wonders. Once she ascends, you belong to me.”

The hunt begins anew.

*

Her interest in the girls of her coven takes a marked increase, as she begins looking through their files and studying them during their lessons. Everyone notices, especially Queenie and Zoe, who are both suspicious of Fiona’s intentions. Marie even mentions it one night over a glass of wine shared before Fiona leaves to visit her lover.

Subtlety was never her specialty. She should be more careful. If Queenie and Zoe realize that they could get rid of her, if Queenie remembers the way she got rid of LaLaurie, then it’s all over. She did not kill her daughter just to get one-upped by a bunch of girls playing at spellcraft.

Emmalyn is a quiet, unassuming girl. She’s a medium, with the ability to see and speak to ghosts whenever she pleases. When she developed Descensum and Vitalum Vitalis a year before, Fiona hadn’t cared much. Whether it was because the coven was thriving or her prolonged existence was throwing magic out of balance, she doesn’t know, but more and more girls were developing one or two of the rarer Seven Wonders. Pyrokinesis was common as well, and Emmalyn had developed it a mere month before Papa Legba’s visit.

The girl has no reason to deny Fiona when she summons her to her sitting room. She takes the cup of tea Fiona offers with a shy smile, baffled about why the Supreme wants to talk to her. Despite Fiona’s more hands-on teaching in the past few days, the younger girls are still frightened of the mythic Supreme. When Fiona begins talking about how the Supremacy works, how there is always a successor, she listens with rapt attention. As she talks about the Seven Wonders all Supremes must undergo, Emmalyn cannot resist talking about her latest power.

She doesn’t notice the way Fiona’s eyes narrow. “Show me,” she says, and she picks up a letter opener off her desk, holding it up for Emmalyn to see.

The girl holds her hand up, brow furrowing with concentration and bottom lip between her teeth. The letter opener shakes in Fiona’s hand, then Emmalyn catches it by the handle, smiling proudly at her accomplishment.

Fiona stands and comes from around her desk, ostensibly to congratulate her. She takes the letter opener from Emmalyn, and then in one fluid motion, cuts her throat. The blood spurts from her neck in a rather impressive fountain, and Fiona smiles as the girl collapses.

Papa Legba appears out of the shadows, clucking his tongue and shaking his head. “Such a shame,” he says, looking down at Emmalyn’s form and the blood slowly pooling around her. “Maybe she would have been a Supreme, but she is not the one taking your power now, Ms. Queen.”

“But she had four of the Seven Wonders!” Fiona says incredulously. She gestures with the letter opener for emphasis, a few flecks of blood flying.

“ _Oui._ And how many did those four witches have when your daughter ascended? Madison Montgomery was one away from Supremacy.”

He disappears, leaving Fiona alone to fume. She returns to the files, trying to see who was a better choice than Emmalyn. No one had more than two of the Wonders at the most. Emmalyn was a perfect fit. Fiona is certain that she would have developed the other three if she had had the time. She already feels so weak, like she is being torn in two, her magic forcibly leaving her as the new Supreme flowers.

She lies in bed with her lover, unable to enjoy the afterglow as she rants on and on about being unable to find the new Supreme. “I can’t have much time,” she complains, dramatically throwing her arm over her eyes. “I already feel so tired, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee must know what I’m looking for. They’ve probably already found her and are performing the Seven Wonders now.”

He takes her fit in stride, rolling away from her to give her a wide berth in bed. There is no consoling her when she’s being so overdramatic. “Maybe you’re looking at the wrong people,” he says noncommittally, getting out of bed and heading to the liquor cabinet.

“You don’t say,” she growls, dropping her arm away to glare at him. It’s not very effective, since he has his back to her as he fixes a couple of drinks. “I’ve looked at everyone at that damn school.”

“Well, what about the situation with your daughter? Did you ever think she was going to be the Supreme? You always made it out like she didn’t have a lot of power at all.” He comes back to the bed, handing her a tumbler.

She sits up, drinking from it before she replies, “That’s because she didn’t.”

“But she was, wasn’t she? All of sudden she did those Seven Wonders you always talk about, right?”

Fiona almost dismisses him, because what does he know about magic, but she mulls over his words. Cordelia went from an herb witch to telekinesis and the other Wonders in no time at all, like flipping a switch. She hadn’t even been in the running, because she was too old.

Except she wasn’t. Delia was the perfect age, nearly thirty years younger than her mother, just a few years too late in maturing.

She sets the glass aside, wraps her arms around his shoulders, and kisses him hard. “I am so glad I kept you around,” she says into his mouth, about as close to a compliment as he’s going to get. He laughs anyway as she straddles him, detailing her plan to kill her successor as they fuck. When she comes, her magic rolls off her in waves that shatter glass.

Fiona returns to the house the next day, and conveniently, Marie is gone. Though the Voodoo witch enjoys teaching the new generation (and has indeed found more descendants of Tituba along with Queenie, giving the coven a bit more color than it was used to), she enjoys her space. She has a new salon in the Ninth Ward, and she is slowly putting back together her tribe. (Fiona is trying very hard not to view this as a threat.)

She’s glad Marie’s gone, because she won’t be too pleased with what Fiona is about to do – even if she’d understand, as a fellow immortal with a deal with Papa Legba.

*

She goes to the upstairs sitting room that doubles as Zoe and Queenie’s office, and the two immediately stand. Not out of respect, but out of concern. Fiona has only walked into the office a handful of times, and though she isn’t usually trying to kill them, one could never be too careful.

“We know you’re looking for the new Supreme,” Queenie says, chin raised in defiance. “Word gets around.”

“We’re not going to let you tear apart this coven again,” Zoe adds.

Fiona smiles, a cat sizing up her prey. “I’m sure you’ve come up with a number of plans to keep her from me,” she says flippantly, pulling off her gloves and tossing them onto a small vanity beside the door. “But it’s not going to matter.”

Even though she is older than them, she moves fast. With a wave of her hand, they are against the wall, unable to move. Her telekinesis forces its way into their mouths, down their throats, finding their hearts and constricting. She has a taste for blood, but this is the cleaner, easier option. In a few moments, with one final squeeze, their hearts have burst in her metaphorical hand. She saw no point in trying to figure out which one of them was her successor when she'd have to kill both of them anyway.

Later, her man comes to her bedroom, dragging the pieces of Kyle’s body in a trash bag. He drops the parts next to Zoe’s still form. Fiona’s grin splits her face as she wraps her arms around him and kisses him hard.

“I did it,” she says into his mouth. “Another thirty years, secured.”

Papa Legba claps from the shadowy corner of her room. “Well done, _chere_ ,” he murmurs darkly, and begins collecting souls. “Enjoy your time while you can.”

Fiona laughs, making a comment about how she intends to. Her man wraps his arms around her, and they sway gently in the thrall of her power.

“Long live the Supreme,” she mutters, leading him to her bed.


End file.
